Final Countdown

This is my last blog and next week is April fifteenth, the end of tax season.

Writing my blog has been easier than I thought it would be. The hardest thing has been deciding what to write about. I have shared my hobbies, my job, and my disappointments. Everyone who has read my blog should know a little more about me and what I do. However, I will not be continuing the blog after this assignment. I have enjoyed reading the blogs in class and commenting on them. It has been interesting to learn about my classmates in an online setting. Best wishes to all of you as you continue or complete your college degrees and in your future careers.

As for April fifteenth, the pressure of tax season will be less until September and October when extensions are due. We do have our share of extensions where I work. I have accomplished more than I expected without having to work overtime. However, my boss has worked everyday of the week to complete tax returns. We probably will not see him for a few days after next Thursday.

Just four more weeks of this semester and finals. This has been a busy semester for me, especially in this class. I still have one more hurdle in the other class I am taking. I have to participate in a powerpoint presentation in a couple of weeks. I seem to do well with four and five year olds, but getting up in front of a classroom of adults makes me very nervous. Of course, I still have the two essays in this class. I cannot quit now but it will soon be over. Unfortunately, I will be taking a class this summer two nights a week. However, I live for the break between finals and June first.

Best wishes to you all and may you be blessed.

Children are a Wonderful Blessing

It is a beautiful spring day. Spring break has been great. Churches all over are enjoying Easter celebrations for kids in the community. I helped this morning at our church. Because of the predictions of storms and the pollen, we had our Easter egg hunt inside the church. Our children's pastor set up several rooms for different age groups. He had different themes in every room and eggs scattered and hidden according to the age group level. We had about sixty kids. I monitored the "net room" for one to three year olds. Of course, there were several parents participating in our room. Each room had clues to find for a word used in the bible story. Even our room had a word that the parents helped us to find. Our word was "loves" and was used in the lesson to tell the kids how much God loves them.

I love working with the children at our church. I have worked with three and four year olds for several years. I also taught first through fifth graders for a couple of years. My husband and I do not have children. Have you ever wondered why some people cannot have children? There were people in the Bible who could not have children or were given children late in life. Then I think of my aunt. She was blessed with a child later in life and then she had cancer and was not able to see her son grow up and have children of his own. In fact, both of my cousin's parents passed away before they were able to see their grandchildren.

I do not understand these things, however, I accept the way things have turned out. I believe God has everything in control and if he wanted me to have children he would have blessed me with them. Instead I get to enjoy and love my niece and nephews and the children in my church.

Spring Break

Spring has arrived and next week is spring break. We will probably have another cold spell, as we always do at Easter. I thought I was going to get off for spring break; however, there are several things I want to get caught up on. I have a group powerpoint presentation in April, and the group decided to meet on Tuesday night during break. Sunday afternoon and Monday night, I will be doing more research to get ready for Tuesday night. We need to meet, but I sure do wish there was a date that would work out for us after spring break. I have to be a team player and go with the flow.



I plan to take off this Friday, Saturday, Wednesday, and next Friday night. For the most part, I will just be spending time with family on my days off. I plan to go to church on Sunday morning and to cell group on Sunday night. On Wednesday night, I will be at church and I agreed to teach my class of four and five year olds. I have been teaching for a while and had to take a break because of my Wednesday night class. Many thanks go out to the individuals who have been filling in for me.



Thursday night I will probably be doing school work as well. If I am not doing school work, I have three sets of accounting to do. I keep books for my husband's company and for a construction company and I am behind. On Saturday, we have an easter egg hunt for the kids at church from ten until noon. I will probably be helping with that. Hopefully, we will be spending Easter with family. Sunday is also my mother-in-law's birthday, so we will most likely have them over to celebrate. We will probably invite my family as well to celebrate Easter.



So my break is pretty well filled up with all kinds of activities. The important thing is to spend time with family.



The slate article I chose was "Stopping Suicide 101" URL http://slate.com/id/2248242.

Minister's Sermons

About three weeks to a month ago, I went to a funeral for a lady that had worked with my husband. I had met her before as she was an art teacher, and my husband had helped her several times to get ready for art expositions. Although I had met her, I did not know her very well. I listened intently to the minister's sermon as the way he delivered the sermon was very interesting. He also read what I now call an essay that her daughter wrote about her mother along with the help of her father. The minister did an excellent job on his sermon.

As my husband and I were leaving the funeral, we talked about the minister's sermon, and I told him I felt like I had just read a creative nonfiction essay about his friend. It gave me a new perspective on minister's sermons and how they put them together. His was not an academic essay with two or three points. Instead, he told stories and then related them to her life. When I left, I felt like I had met her all over again and knew more about her life. I also thought the writing her daughter and husband wrote was a memoir.

I attend church every Sunday, but now I have a new perspective when listening to the sermons. The pastor at my church almost always delivers an academic essay in his sermons. He may have more than three points, but he always has an introduction and a conclusion. He does tell stories and give scriptures to relate the points and help us to better understand his message. However, he seems to have a style of writing different from the one I heard at the funeral. I have to say though, I have never heard my pastor deliver a sermon at a funeral. Nor have I heard the other pastor preach a sermon on Sunday to the congregation. There may be different times for different sermons.

This is not to say one style of sermon is better than the other. I believe if a minister is teaching from the Bible, it is all creative nonfiction to me.

Daylight Savings Time

Everyone will move their clocks forward one hour this weekend as daylight savings time begins on Sunday, March 14th. Have you ever wondered why they do not move the clock thirty minutes and leave it? Most people do not like the time change in March because we lose an hour. Despite that fact, personally, I like the time frame we are moving into the best. There is more daylight when you get off of work at five o'clock, and you can enjoy the rest of the evening outside if you want.



When I was playing softball, we would practice in the evenings and most of the games were early. Of course, at the games, they would have to turn on the lights eventually; but it did not get dark as early. So it is good for those who like to participate in sports. If they would leave the time this way throughout the year, hunters could enjoy an hour longer on the stand in the evening. It also allows children to go trick or treating at Halloween before it gets too late. I remember as a child, we would go trick or treating when it was dark.



I also like the time better because I can enjoy evening walks through the neighborhood before it gets too dark. Now that hunting season is over, we can go to the deer lease and enjoy riding four wheelers. Also, we go camping in the summer and just enjoy being outside. There are several things I enjoy doing outside and this time frame gives us some extra time to enjoy them in the daylight. We get to enjoy it until the fall. Then everyone will get their hour back as we move the clocks back an hour as daylight savings time ends in November. Do you think this will ever change?

Retirement Life

My grandmother retired in 1981 when my cousin was born. She retired early so that she could help my aunt by taking care of him while she worked. My grandmother stayed busy after retirement and she has always been very active. When my aunt was sick with cancer, she would go to their house and help my uncle with the house and do the ironing. She also likes to cook and can make the best homeade bread. She has always done the cooking for the family on the holidays. She likes to read; mostly her Sunday school lesson and the Bible as she was a teacher. She is still active in the church and always likes being with the family. You would not know by looking at her that she is ninety years old. She is very healthy for her age.



My father in law retired in 1992. He also retired early due to circumstances on his job. When he first retired he enjoyed his time off and his hobby was hunting. My husband, his brother and their father would take a trip every year to Arkansas to deer hunt. His favorite past time is shooting targets. After my brother in law died in 2005, he lost interest in hunting. He is 77 years old, and this last hunting season he only went hunting with my husband once. Now his favorite thing to do is watching television and sleeping; mostly sleeping.



My father retired in January 2005. When he first retired, he was so excited about retirement. He was an inventory auditor so he travelled very often. Now he could take some time to visit friends and family. The only thing bad about my father's retirement is that he has more health problems now than he had in the years he was working. He has not been able to enjoy his retirement as much as in the beginning because he feels so bad. The only thing he does now is stay at home watching sports and game shows on television. If the news gets too bad, he will turn it off and sit at home in silence all alone. The highlight of his week is when my siblings or I come to visit. Then he does not want us to go home.



Retirement is a long way off for me; however, when I retire I hope I can be like my grandmother. I want to stay busy and maybe do some travelling. I hope when I am her age I can say I have been as healthy as she is. A person can enjoy so much more of his life if he feels good. Retirement should be a time in life that you can do all the things you wished you could have done while you were working. It should be a happy time in your life.

Prepare For Your Tax Return

February is coming to a close and March is upon us. My how time flies when you are busy. Just six and a half more weeks until April fifteenth. Tax information is rolling in and our CPA is working every day including weekends. Even though I do not prepare tax returns, here are some helpful hints for your tax return.



The most important thing you should do to prepare for your tax return is to fill out the tax organizer provided by your CPA. The questions on the organizer will inform you of what documents you need to include in your tax information. Be sure to include all your W-2s and any other income you may have, such as a K-1 for your business or a 1099 if you provided contract or casual labor services. Be certain that you have included all documents for other sources of income or include the amount on your tax organizer.



In addition to your income, you need to enclose documents for your deductions. If you itemize deductions on your return, you will need such items as real estate taxes, state income taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Other itemized deductions are medical expenses and job and miscellaneous expenses if you are over the specified threshold. If you are a college student, you may be able to deduct your tuition. Also there is a state tax deduction for a part of your homeowners insurance, so be sure to include the declarations page from your insurance provider.



Your CPA should include any tax law changes in your organizer. The more prepared you are with your tax information, the sooner your return can be completed. So the best advice is be prepared.

Tax Season

We are about to enter into the eighth week of tax season. W-2's have been completed and next week we will wrap up 1099's and business licenses. I successfully completed the annual account with over four hundred checks to enter and the tax return has been completed. What seemed like it took me three days, the account actually only took me about nine hours total. I have also prepared fifteen financials which are ready for the tax return preparation stage. There are other accounts which I am through December; however I am still waiting on information from the client to complete the process. I do not complete tax returns as that is the job of the CPA.

One pet peeve of mine as a writeup accountant is when a client purchases Quickbooks and tries to do the bookkeeping on their own. Even though Quickbooks is an accounting software which is user friendly and not too difficult to learn, most of the clients that try to use it have no concept of accounting. Using Quickbooks does not make anyone an accountant. The thing that amuses me the most, is they are really good at creating their own accounts to code checks and often miscode them. Our job is to clean up their mess.

Then there are those that want the accountant to set it up for them and teach them accounting. I love what my boss says about this. "I do not take my car to the mechanic and ask him to explain to me how to fix my vehicle." Let the mechanic fix cars and the accountants do the accounting.Also there are those that complain about their bill for the tax return, because they think they have done the work necessary for them to do the return. They do not understand the work involved in cleaning up the account and properly preparing the statements. There are times when it would have been easier to enter the checks ourselves from the beginning rather than click and change.

Accounting Writeup

Life as an accountant in writeup has many deadlines. In January, the preparation of W-2's is due. February brings the preparation of 1099's and business licenses. In March, there is the completion of documents for property tax assessments. April brings the first quarter of payroll quarterly reports which are due four times in a year. During all these months and every month thereafter, payroll tax deposits are due by the fifteenth and sales taxes are due by the twentieth.

Everyone is familiar with the April fifteenth deadline for federal taxes and the May fifteenth deadline for state taxes. The preparation of corporate financials are done throughout the year. From January to March emphasis is placed on the completion of corporate financials for corporations which have a March fifteenth deadline. The corporate tax return has to be completed before the owner's personal tax return can be prepared. Then there are the extensions until September fifteenth for corporation returns and October fifteenth for personal returns.

Financials can be prepared monthly, quarterly, or annually. What aggravates me the most as a writeup accountant, is an owner of a corporation who writes more than one hundred checks in a year and waits until the end of the year to bring in his or her check stubs and bank statements for the preparation of the year's financials for the tax return. It is the annual accounts that take an excessive amount of time to complete before the tax return is due. For example, I am working on a client who brought in over four hundred checks written in a year and it is taking me three days to key it all in. Inevitably, I can prepare an annual financial statement and will have a list of questions for the client to answer about something which happened almost a year ago. Personally, if I had my own accounting firm, I would require client accounts to be monthly or at least quarterly.

Because of the number of extensions that may be filed by an accounting firm, the job of a writeup accountant is never boring. When I worked for a large accounting firm, I took care of approximately thirty clients writeup. We worked overtime during tax season at our discretion and would get paid for the overtime. Now I work for a small firm and prepare forty to forty five client's writeup. Little overtime is allowed with more clients and we always seem to be behind.

The job of writeup is constant and demanding due to the deadlines that have to be met. It is a challenge each month, quarter, and each tax season. Yet it is rewarding when progress is made and the tax return is complete.

Journey of a Hunt

I never dreamed I would be a hunter. Growing up the only gun I took to the woods was a BB gun. Now it is about two thirty in the afternoon and we are headed to a box stand made of wood standing about fifteen feet in the air. Our destination is a buck or doe away. We never drive up to the stand on the four wheeler, but we park within walking distance. As we walk along the way we look in the trails and green food plots for a sign of where the deer may be crossing. After we quietly climb in the stand, I check the sights with the scope on the rifle in all directions of the possibility of the appearance of a deer. From then on the journey of the hunt begins.
The first thing I need to learn is hunting requires patience. I stare in the direction in front, on the left, and to the right for any sign of movement along the edges of the extended line of woods in sight. This movement could happen quickly after arriving to the stand; however, most often the prize comes after a long wait or sometimes not at all. I think of the few times I have been successful on the hunt. If I had been impatient the doe would be still roaming in the woods. Therefore, I can leave the stand early empty handed, or I can accept the fact that this journey takes time and endurance.
The final thing I learn from this hunting experience is that I will have to remain persistent. I have to keep coming back and repeat the process in spite of the outcome. I remember being in the stand with my husband while he was hunting. On many occassions we would scan the forest for deer and find no movement at all. This is the time when I can enjoy nature and God's creation. I watch squirrels as they scurry from tree to tree. I can also see different kinds of birds as they fly from one end of the woods to the other and may even see a rabbit or two. Even if I leave the stand without the buck or doe, I cannot give up but leave with the expectation that the next time I enter on this journey, I could reach my destination.